Jane Perrone's organic gardening blog

February 19, 2007

What's in your anti-slug armoury?

The extract from my book that ran in the Guardian a few weeks ago was on that gardener's perennial, the slug: I was reminded of the useful anti-slug suggestions several readers responded with a couple of days ago when I spied my first gastropod of 2007 sashaying nonchalantly across my back step.

It was only a small one, but I suspected it was responsible for muching on the Iris reticulata that are planted (foolishly) in a walled raised bed that's very popular with slugs and snails. All that's left is a green stump.

Anyway, onto the suggestions: read the extract for my own ideas, but here are some readers' own top tips:

Bill Coates says he's never tried it, but heard that slugs hate human hair and a spreading of clippings around any susceptible plants will do the trick, with the benefit of being non-toxic, bio-degradable and sustainable (unless you happen to be bald, I guess). Can anyone else vouch for this methoc?

Ted Price tells me that planting pitcher plants or Sarracenia purpurea around slug-prone parts of the garden helps to keep the population down as these carnivorous plants will attract - and devour - lots of them. I grow pitcher plants and have never noticed them eating a huge number of slugs, but I'd be interested to hear what other people think of this suggestion. You also have to bear in mind that they won't be winter-hardy in some parts of the country, and require boggy conditions.

Sue Beesley pointed out that Garden Organic sells some wildlife-friendly pellets that you can use safely without harm to wildlife, as opposed to the Metaldehyde pellets that we should avoid. Sue writes: "The active ingredient is Ferric phosphate. Yes they are scarily blue, but they actually work better than the old type (the beasts crawl away and die tidily in a hole, not smeared on the path) and everything I have read assures me that they are totally safe to other wildlife. As the formula suggests, they break down into iron, phosphorus and oxygen, so no nasty substances left behind either. I can't recommend them highly enough."

Chris Maddams mentioned a similar-sounding pellet called Ferramol which has similar ingredients and is also safe for organic use, apparently.

I think I may take the laid-back approach to slugs this year and try the human hair method as well as a regular "slug patrol". Let me know how you're tackling the slug issue, won't you?

I've invested in some slug stoppa tape which is basically a roll of copper tape which the slugs apparently are not happy to crawl over. I'm going to trial it on a few pots and if it seems to work I'll consider putting it around the edges of my raised beds too.

I just bought some copper barriers to try, perhaps a topic for a future post.

The ones I have are quite large and solid. They are rings designed to stand alone in the garden, and seem like they would stand up pretty well to wind and the like. They are also pretty tall, 2" (5cm) or so.

The instructions that came with them were pretty clear that when placing them it was important not to provide any bridging material allowing slugs to walk over the barrier so no leaves, sticks, etc.

I don't really have any unbiased information to go on, but if the information from this company is correct, it would suggest that copper tape may not be enough, because slugs and snails can just step over it without touching it. It's something to keep in mind anyway.

As I too have a duck deficiency in my garden, I've got a few ideas which work for me ... copper tape round pots of hostas (although the chatelaine of a grand Scottish garden with huge beds of hostas told me that they did nothing except grow them in quantity!) ... I cut up plastic drinks bottles and put them round seedlings, delphiniums, etc. The more jagged the better, and you can get five or six from a 2l bottle ... crushed shells around the base of plants - you can buy this at vast expense from garden centres, but it's not as jagged as mussel shells, and jagged is what you need.

I haven't seen one yet this year, but yesterday I saw a flock of over 1,000 pigeons over the field beside my garden - so any ideas about what to do about them??

I have a two-pronged approach. I fill a trigger-spray bottle with 1:3 ammonia:water solution and go mano a sluggo in the early morning before they go into hiding for the day. The ammonia reacts with the slug body to form a little splotch of fertilizer. The following morning I frequently find a half dozen or more slugs gathered around their fallen comrade and they are soon reunited in slug heaven. For the times when I can't be there to send their slimy little bodies to their maker, I scatter ferrous sulphate pellets in out of the way corners of the garden where the chickens and the dog, who inexplicably devour the stuff) can't get at it.

Why buy ammonia? Urine's just as good. I do my searching at night, drop the blighters in a bucket of the stuff, replace the lid and tip the lot onto the compost in the morning.
Slugs and snails won't cross water, so growing susceptible plants in a big pot and ensuring there's water in the saucer each evening sorts that out.

I didn't see anyone mention beer. Although it didn't seem to work this past year as well (may have been the type of beer), I have always been successful with using small saucers (deep lid tops usually) and pouring beer in them. The slugs seem to be attracted to it and they drown in it, that or the are simply osmotically challenged by it and never make it out of the cap.
Thanks for the other ideas! Now I don't feel so alone, as I put on my head light and wander around the backyard with my salt shaker, lol.